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The estimate of the receipts from the sale of Waste Lands for the year ending September 30, 1873, was £180,000. The receipts for the seven months of the year which have elapsed reached an amount nearly £100,000 in excess of the estimate for the whole year.

I may remind you that your appropriations were more than £100,000 in excess of the estimated receipts, but as there is no reason to suppose that the land sales will fall off materially during the remaining five months of the year, I shall ask you to consider the propriety of making further appropriations to meet the largely increased demand for land ready of access and suitable for settlement. At the present the agricultural land on the seaboard eastward of the main trunk line of railway has, for the most part, been purchased, and will have reasonable facilities afforded to it by the existing and the projected lines of railway. Three branch lines are already in course of construction, giving railway communication to the Oxford, Malvern, and Pleasant Point Districts, and opening up new fields for settlement to the westward of the main line. I am of opinion that the lands already sold in the Ashburton and Mount Somers Districts, and the inducements offered to settlers in the country underlying the hills in that part of the Province, will justify the construction of a branch line, similar in direction to those I have named, from the Ashburton township.

I am further of opinion that a complete chain of road communication should be made along the foot of the hill country throughout the Province, by bridging the gorges of the principal rivers. With that view you will be asked to sanction the erection of bridges over the gorges of the Waimakariri and Rakaia Rivers, and also over a branch of the Ashburton River. The forest, coal-bearing, and agricultural lands at the foot of the hills will thus be brought into communication with each other, and with the main lines of railway.

It is not unreasonable to look for the settlement of a considerable mining population in the Malvern district at no distant period. It is worthy of your consideration whether its resources should not be more fully and accurately tested and ascertained, by boring and other means of exploration. The practical and scientific research which has already taken place points to results of very considerable importance. It is stated that there is evidence of one of the largest and most valuable coalfields in New Zealand, though "these coal measures have not yet been half prospected."

You will be asked to press upon the consideration of the Colonial Government the desirableness of completing the portion of the trunk line of railway between Timaru and the Waitaki River.

You will learn from correspondence between myself and the Colonial Government that the Government has undertaken to press on the opening of better communication with the West Coast of this Island through the Amuri district. I look upon this as but a small instalment of that better communication between the two sides of this Island, which will ultimately prove of the greatest commercial value, as well to this Province as to the Colony generally. Correspondence of a subsequent date will be placed before you, showing what has passed between the Colonial Government and a committee of gentlemen in the Nelson Province, as to the formation of a line of railway from Nelson to Greymouth, and from some point of this line to the northern boundary of this Province. When fuller information has been furnished, the subject will be brought under your consideration.

Papers will be laid before you showing the action taken through the Survey Office, to promote a more complete system of roads throughout the Province. This is rendered necessary by the rapid alienation of the waste lands which is taking place, both for the purpose of giving facilities of selection and occupation to purchasers, and for preventing